Head Man Butch Harmon is at the top of his profession, and his relationship with Tiger Woods is only part of the reason

His life looks glamorous now. His kids are grown, he's no longermarried, he has lost a bunch of weight, his suits arecustom-made, and he's building himself a house on the outskirtsof the new capital of the free world, Las Vegas. His postmodernacademy there, the Butch Harmon School of Golf, is spectacular,nestled into the hillocks of the Rio Secco Golf Club, a courseso shiny its fairways literally glimmer. Each year hundreds ofpupils--rich, white middle-aged men, mostly--make a pilgrimagethere to spend $500 for an hour with the master and much more atthe Rio craps tables, downtown. Harmon does his gambling off theStrip, at the places known only to locals and insiders, Harmonbeing both. Every month or two Tiger Woods jets in for tutorialsand anonymous gambling sessions. Sometimes Harmon goes toWoods's crib at Isleworth, in Orlando, and stays in Tiger'sguest room. They hit balls, they work out, they play golf, theywatch basketball. Harmon is not only Tiger's teacher, but alsoone of his best friends. He's the ultimate insider in Tiger'sinsulated camp, which is to say, he is at the center of thesporting universe. You want to see Butch? Take a number, pal.His hourly rate is scaring off nobody.

Twenty years ago E. Claude (Butch) Harmon Jr. was broke, livingon his brother Dick's couch, drinking too much, acting surly,driving tractors on Texas golf courses under construction. Hewas a failure as a Tour player and a dropout as a club pro. Hewas in a marriage headed for divorce, and his two children werebeing raised in a battleground. Through it all, Butch's threebrothers will tell you, he was a cocky bastard, just as he hasalways been. It was as if he could see this day coming. Lastweek, during the practice rounds at the Masters and in thepractice areas, only the player, the player's caddie and theplayer's coach are allowed inside the ropes. There was Butch,sanctum sanctorum, with several hundred people leaning over agreen-and-white cord trying to hear a snippet of conversationbetween teacher and pupil.

He's everywhere. If you stay at the hotel at the World Golf Hallof Fame in St. Augustine, Fla., Butch is on SpectraVision, histaped lessons available on command 24 hours a day. Visit anymall bookstore in the country, and two Harmon titles are sharingshelf space with the author's alphabetical neighbor, Ben Hogan.Put on the Golf Channel, and there's Harmon on Academy Live.Surf over to Fox looking for a baseball score, and there'sHarmon selling his four-tape video series, Conquering Golf. He'sin the catalog of a Canadian clothing manufacturer, Jack Victor.He's a commentator for British television at 10 tournaments ayear. Go to the dentist, excavate an old Golf Digest from thestack of Highlights, and there's Harmon, on the cover, playingone-handed bunker shots.

The guy's on a roll. The final of the Andersen Consulting MatchPlay Championship in February featured two Harmon students,Woods and Darren Clarke. Talk about your win-wins. In thesemifinals Woods dismantled one of Harmon's former students,Davis Love III. After Woods nutted one of his 330-yarders aspectator called out to Harmon, "What are you feeding him?" Towhich Harmon responded, "Davis, today."

Not a kind comment, particularly considering that Love helpedlaunch Harmon's career as a teacher of elite players. After aseries of personal setbacks in the '70s, Harmon spent an entiredecade resurrecting his career and regaining financial controlof his life. In the course of 10 years he was a tractor driver,a club pro at a rough-and-tumble Texas muni where he ran thecarts, worked the snack bar, sold golf balls and did trick-shotexhibitions. Finally, at the end of the decade, he became thedirector of golf at Lochinvar, a swanky club in Houston.

His first world-class student was Love, with whom he startedworking in 1991. Greg Norman saw improvements in Love's swingand signed on with Harmon late in 1991. In 1993, Woods, 17, andinspired by Norman's progress, enrolled with Harmon, unable topay but more than willing to work and to learn. Anyway, no oneever said that making kind comments was Harmon's strong suit.Just the opposite.

His late father, the first E. Claude Harmon, a pro at two eliteclubs, Winged Foot and Seminole, and winner of the '48 Masters,was a master zinger. Butch, the oldest of the boys and twogirls, grew up barraged by his father's wicked one-liners. WhenButch was the club pro at the rough-and-tumble muni in TexasCity, his father said to him, "All you need is a tattoo parlorin your pro shop, and you'll be set for life." Butch learnedfrom the best.

Love and Butch parted ways, amicably, in 1996. Later that year,at the PGA at Valhalla, Norman and Harmon got into a disputeover Harmon's clothing contract, and Norman fired his teacher inthe middle of a practice round. (They have patched things up butdo not work together.) As for Woods and Harmon, they're goingstrong. Clarke says the two men are wholly suited to each other."Those two could talk golf 24 hours a day, seven days a week,"Clarke says. Harmon and Woods speak the same language, and theyspeak it the same way.

An example: On the Sunday before this year's Masters, Harmonplayed 36 holes at Augusta as the guest of a member. For the dayhe played the 12th hole, the ticklish par-3, in five strokes. "Idon't know why you guys are always bitching about 12," Harmontold his star pupil. "I made a par and a birdie there when Iplayed it on Sunday." Woods saw his opening. "Wrong Sunday," hesaid.

Maybe the most ticklish thing in golf these days is any evolvingrelationship with Woods. In '93, when Harmon was teaching two ofthe best players in the world, it was Woods who sought outHarmon. Now the 24-year-old golfer is the most powerful personin the game, and Harmon, who is 56, knows it. "Tiger is theshow," he says. "His caddie, Steve Williams, has one role. Ihave another. We're not the show. A lot of what I have in lifeis because I'm Tiger's teacher."

Woods pays Harmon an annual flat fee--said by some to be as muchas $1 million, but only Harmon knows for sure--and part of thedeal is that Harmon must always be available whenever Woodsneeds him. They speak, in person or on the phone, after everyround. Last week at Augusta, Harmon didn't miss a single shot byWoods, in practice or in competition. They were together on thepractice tee for hours at a time, invigorated by their quest forperfection. Harmon says Woods's capacity for work exceeds thatof any golfer he has ever known, including Norman who, Harmonsays, "made tremendous personal sacrifices to be the best playerin the world." But Harmon's capacity for work is off the charts,too. That's their ultimate link. But there are other bondingelements, the most subtle of which is Harmon's understanding ofmixed-race marriages and mixed-race kids. Harmon's first wife(also his third) was Lillie Duran, a woman of Mexican descentfrom a working-class family. Harmon's parents did not approve oftheir union, so the couple eloped shortly after high school. Thechildren from that marriage--a daughter, Michaele Ann, 33, wholives in Houston near her mother, and a son, CH, 30, who workswith his father--grew up well aware of their mixed heritage,just as Woods did. Woods has a Buddhist, Thai mother and ablack, American father, and Woods has been influenced by bothcultures. If you don't understand this about him, you don'tunderstand anything about him. But the pupil and the teacherdon't talk about this stuff. They don't need to.

They share other important links. Earl Woods and Butch Harmonare former Army men, veterans of the Vietnam War. Both believethe routines of war--preparation, discipline, loyalty,sacrifice--may be applied to civilian life. Both men werescarred by Vietnam. In the name of his country, Harmon descendedinto Asian jungles where he killed men, stood next to friends asthey were killed, had his foot on a land mine that should havekilled him but did not detonate. Television commentators willsometimes talk about Woods's having the courage to play certainshots. The kid knows what courage actually is. The two mostimportant men in his life have it, in spades.

Bill Harmon, one of Butch's three brothers, all of whom areprominent in the golf business, can be critical of his brotherbut also very generous. "With Butch, you always go back to thatfoxhole question," Bill says. "Who would you want in a foxholewith you with your life on the line? Nobody would be better thanButch. There's a lot of that in his relationship with Tiger.It's, 'You and me against the world, Tiger.'"

That spirit was challenged in 1998, the year Woods won only onceon Tour, the year Woods and Harmon made subtle, importantchanges to Woods's swing, the year Harmon and Earl Woods gaveconflicting advice to Tiger on his putting. Harmon will notacknowledge this, but others do: During that year, despiteHarmon's strutting cockiness, he was nervous about what he wasdoing. After all, the old swing was good enough to produce a12-shot victory in the '97 Masters. "Tiger's season last year,particularly the win at the PGA Championship, that was atremendous validation for Butch," says Bill Harmon. "You couldsee the satisfaction in his face. The man can teach."

Early last year Harmon recognized that Woods was becomingconfused by the conflicting putting advice from his father andhis teacher. "I said to him, 'Forget about what your father'ssaying. Forget about what I'm saying. Forget about what MarkO'Meara is saying,'" Harmon recalls. "'Just go putt the way youwant to putt. Don't listen to anybody.'" Woods listened toHarmon. For the most part, he has putted brilliantly ever since.It takes confidence for a teacher to know when and where to stepaside. Harmon has it. He has always been sure of himself.

He has always been a hothead and a rebel, too. As a kid he mightplay 15 holes in a couple under par, make a triple bogey on 16and walk off the course. At one point Harmon's parents, notknowing what to do with their first child, enrolled their littlesweetness in a Augustinian boarding school, Villanova, in Ojai,Calif. His stay was brief. According to Bill, one day one of thepriests, upset with Butch, picked him up by the collar and threwhim against a wall. Butch was a football player, wiry andmuscular. He clocked the priest with a left hook. When hisparents went to collect him, his father asked, "Why did youpunch a priest?"

"I don't know," Butch answered, "but I guarantee you that guywill think twice before he picks up another kid by the shirt andthrows him against a wall." His father, a man who disdainedphysical violence, sighed. In raising Butch, he knew he was infor a long ride.

Harmon played golf at Houston for part of a semester. He leftfor school with a set of clubs given to him by his father, clubshis father had used in finishing third in the '59 U.S. Open atWinged Foot. When Butch left Houston, the clubs were broken intoso many pieces they could fit in a shoe box.

Now Harmon has his hotheadedness and his rebelliousness and hiscockiness in check. He has probably learned as much from hisextraordinary pupil as his pupil has from him. All good teacherslearn from their students.

A few days before the Masters, Harmon was teaching at his schoolin Las Vegas. He was working with a student, a man in his early60s, a corporate success, a golfing failure. Harmon sized up theman in three swings. "You're a strong guy, in good shape, you'retaking care of yourself," the teacher said. "You need to getmore out of your swing. Sometimes we get so afraid of hittingbad shots, we don't let ourselves hit good ones."

The man looked at Harmon, nodded his head in long, sad strokes.He was standing before the master teacher, the man who teachesTiger Woods, and it was as if his whole life had been bared. Theteacher wasted no time. The clock was running. There was work tobe done, improvements to be made. The student knew it, and theteacher knew it, too.

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER READ MILLERB/W PHOTO: UPI/CORBIS Like father, like son Butch (with Claude in '51) has always taken after his dad, even in the way he tosses off one-liners.COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK HAPPY MEDIUM Harmon helped his star pupil sort out conflicting advice on his putting.

Said Claude about Butch's club job in Texas City: "All you needis a tattoo parlor in your pro shop, and you'll be set for life."